Interviews I have conducted interviews with three female musicians about their experiences in the music industry. It was refreshing to get out of the 'research = reading' mindset, and hear three perspectives, from people who are all so thoroughly engaged in music, yet who all play different instruments and who have their roots in different genres. Interview #1 - Simone Berk - Guitarist, vocalist, songwriter for Sugar Snow (Although we were unable to meet in person, I sent Simone roughly the same questions that I asked the other two interviewees; her responses are below.)
Background: Simone is the frontwoman for Boston-based band Sugar Snow. She is the guitarist, vocalist, songwriter of the band. According to Maverick Magazine, a digital music magazine from the U.K., Sugar Snow sounds like "acoustic-styled pop" with "achingly beautiful lead vocals... driving drums and strident electric guitar." Outside of music, she spends a fair amount of time being a mom, as, I imagine, many parents do. She began seriously playing music just a few years ago, but she knows quite a bit about the perception of women from her experiences.
Q: What are the most rewarding things about being a musician? A: The people that I meet through music, people I would never have met otherwise, are a huge part of why I love being a musician. Being able to share your creativity (music is meant to be shared) and feel like it is heard and appreciated is great, too. And playing shows can be really fun. On a good night, there’s nothing like it.
Q: What are some of the most difficult things about being in the music business, or being a musician? A: I have no complaints about being a musician, other than it’s hard sometimes. Boo hoo for me. :)
My issue is with the business side of things. The low regard in which musicians are held is really quite depressing. I think there are a lot of unscrupulous people who are ready to take advantage of you, and a lot of fragile egos. Just like anything else, you have to keep your wits about you and learn who is good to work with and who is out to screw you. It is a repeat life lesson that I could have done without.
Q: Do you think that your experience as a musician, as a performer, has been impacted by your gender as a woman? If so, how? A: Without a doubt, it has made a difference. It can’t not – I AM a woman, after all. The reminders of the importance of looks and youth, not just good music, is something that most of the male musicians I know never have to consider. I am really thankful that I didn’t start playing music in my twenties, because I know I would have ended up with an eating disorder from the constant scrutiny. At this point, I don’t care. Ah, the beauty of being over 40!
Interestingly, most of my “fans” are men. I’m not sure if that’s because I am a woman, but I suspect it has something to do with that. I have been told that I sound very vulnerable when I sing, so maybe I am tapping into some macho need of theirs to protect and take care of me. Which, if that’s it, is utterly hilarious.
Q: What's it like being a musician – onstage, offstage, writing with the band…? A: I don’t write with the band, I write on my own and bring it to the band in it’s basic, though skeletal form. It generally works like this: I start playing guitar, find a chord progression that I like, look for lyrics in my notebooks that fit, and then edit and edit and edit until it holds together. Then I bring it to the band, sometimes with “this needs a bridge” sometimes with “I have questions about the tempo” and sometimes with nothing, it’s done. They of course add themselves as they play, which is great. But the writing is never done as a group.
I don’t get particularly nervous anymore, but it used to be paralyzing. Now I am confident enough to figure it will go the way it goes, sometimes great, sometimes meh. You can never know until you play. We are ALWAYS well rehearsed, but the magic of live music is that you never know what will happen. And I do enjoy that part of it.
Offstage, I am just Mom. I vacuum and do house crap just like anyone else. It’s not very glamorous, which is really annoying. :)
Q: What about other musicians, has their gender impacted their success, or their perception? A: It depends on what your definition of success is. If making great music that is enjoyed and respected is success, then I don’t think it matters too terribly much, although you will come across random Neanderthals who don’t “identify” with music by women. If it has hampered my success, I don’t know about it.
BUT if you are talking about the BUSINESS of music, then absolutely. Because business is about money, minimizing your investment and maximizing your success. And by “your” I mean “their”. I always think of the 80’s band Romeo Void. They were an amazing band, but their singer, poet Deborah Iyall, was overweight and not conventionally pretty. Remember, this was the age of video, so that mattered. They had initial flukey success, and then never again. And the band Heart—Anne Wilson was constantly told she had to lose weight by her record company. Her voice is unbelievably powerful, but that wasn’t enough. Then repeat and repeat and repeat again, with women in music everywhere.
Q: Do you see any correlation between the gender of a musician and the way that the media sees them? A: I want to say yes immediately, but music writers are individuals with their own tastes and bullshit. Their job is not objective at all. So really, anything they say is an opinion anyway. I don’t view them as journalists. But those opinions may contain all kinds of preconceived notions and misconceptions that can’t help but come out. I remember reading an article about the band L7 and the writer talking about their PMS, by way of explaining their surliness. Really? Are we still beating that horse?
Q: So… [regarding the paper,] I’ve had a lot of trouble finding out about Riot Grrrls, and most people I’ve talked to have never heard of them. They were very much against the mainstream media, production and marketing… do you think that limited them in major ways? Because what I’ve found is that,... I actually haven’t found that much about them, and I wonder if their rejection of the mainstream might have limited their reach? A: Sure. In the age of the interweb, they would have had a wide reaching platform for their views. Of course, that would have made them susceptible to backlash, and my sense is that they were trying to make things better for themselves at the time, not necessarily trying to change music forever.
Things continue to be complicated for women. You don’t have to get naked to be successful and respected (like Kim Deal or Kim Gordon) but of course you can. If a woman wants to use her sexiness to sell her music, she has a right to do so. My feminist perspective right there—feminism is about choices, and women in music have choices to make about how they want to be perceived. I suspect, in the long run, women who use the T&A method lose respect, simply because it, and they, get old. Everyone has moved onto something else—so will the music hold up?
Q: Anything else you want to add about your experiences? As a woman, a musician, a songwriter, a guitar player...? A: This band has been a steep learning curve for me. I learned pretty quickly that business savvy is an absolute necessity, and that it is never JUST about music. It is sickeningly complicated, and it can become an IT, it’s own entity, if you let it. The beautiful thing about having experienced a whole life before I started music is that I don’t need to let Sugar Snow become an It. Sugar Snow is me. I am not It. Interview #2 - Renee Solano - Drummer, songwriter for Sans Nomenclature (I interviewed Renee while walking around a park, so I filmed that.)
This interview does not contain gluten.
Background: Renee is a drummer and songwriter for the local punk band Sans Nomenclature. She teaches drum lessons and leads band rehearsals at the School of Rock Boston. She also teaches in an after school program called Be In Your Own Band, as well as private drum lessons.
Q: What do you see as the most rewarding things about being involved in the music industry and being a musician? A: I think making people happy with music is one of my favorite things to see. My jazz band used to play rest homes, and… people were absolutely ecstatic to have music…
The music that we write isn’t necessarily happy music… a song that I wrote, “Breadcrumbs of Death”, isn’t exactly happy… it’s funny and angry at the same time. It’s about my gluton allergies… and a lot of people who have that can relate, I’m sure.
Q: What are the most challanging things about being a musician? A: I’d say the most challanging tings is getting people to respect us as artists and pay us for our work. People expect us to give it away for free. If artists don’t get paid for what they do, it’s not going to be possible for them to make more music in the future. That is my concern.
Q: Do you think your experience as a musician has been impacted by your gender, at all, as a woman? A: Yes and no. When I first started, I said, I don’t want to be known as a female drummer, I just want to be known as a drummer. And that’s still the case, but on the other hand, any gimmick that gets people to come to your shows, use it.
Q: So gender is kind of a gimmick? A: It can be. For example, I have people go, ‘oh, a female drummer,’ they’ll come out and see [the concert] just to see [the female drummer.]
Q: So it’s a spectacle? A: No, I’d say, it’s a way to get people to shows. you use anything you can to get people to shows. It’s entertainment, and whatever it is that will make people come out and pay to see you, for whatever reason, [you go with that.] And so, I don’t have any problem with… people who come out to see me because [I am] a girl [drummer] and that’s very rare. But my hope is that they see me, they see that I’m good, and they come back.
Q: …because you’re good, not because you’re a woman drummer? A: Right exactly. Usually what happens is they’ll go, ‘she’s pretty good’ and they’ll come back, not because there’s a girl playing drums, but… I mean, any gimmick. If you’re singer’s pretty, you put pictures of her up on your flyers. I mean let’s be realistic here, whatever sells – within reason. [And] if your male singer is attractive, you put pictures of him up on the flyers, so the girls show up… it’s the same thing.
Q: Do you see other musicians as having been impacted by their gender, in their music, in their performance? A: Probably. The thing is, if you’re a female singer, that’s sort of expected. If I show up to a jam session, people always go, ‘oh cool, so what songs are you gonna sing?’ Noo… I am a drummer. But I can’t really yell and scream that that’s sexist, because generally… when I show up to these things, I’m the only female who plays an instrument. It’s not like there’s not a precedent for people to just assume.
Q: Do you see a correlation between a musician’s gender and the way they’re portrayed in the media, or perceived by the media? A: Absolutely. Especially the last… twenty years or so. I mean, I don’t want to offend anybody, but I don’t think Mama Cass or Barbra Streisand or Janis Joplin would have had a shot – they would’ve been the person lip synching behind the pretty chick in C&C Music factory that they used in the video. That’s what would have been happening, because now it is about image, especially in the world of pop. And I don’t think a girl who is not attractive has an shot at being a frontperson.
Q: Wow. So what about news or magazine articles, you know, just like media, I guess other than the general stuff? Do you read music magazines? A: Yeah, I would say a [woman’s] image is picked apart more [than a man’s].
It was my hope that eventually females would be treated the way males used to be treated, and no one would comment n tei weight or what they’re wearing. And now, it’s more like, everyone’s commenting about [the mens’] weight and what they’re wearing. So it’s gone completely the other way.
I don’t want to make it sound like, if you’re a female and you want to be a musician, ‘don’t do it, because it’s horrible,’ I mean if it’s what you want to do, do it.
[It is very difficult to do music full-time and make a living] but it’s not impossible. Lots of us are doing it. And that may include… teaching, booking, managing… there’s lots of aspects of the music industry besides performing. It can be done.
Q: Do you want to play a drum beat for us? A: On this bench? Sure…
Q: Yeah, do it. Do it! DO IT! A: *Tap, tap-tap, tap-tap, tap, tap.* Interview #3 - Anderson Mar -Vocalist, songwriter for Sans Nomenclature
Background: Anderson has many different roles in the rock music industry: frontwoman for Boston-based punk band Sans Nomenclature; founder/CEO of Dark Sky Productions (for the past 17 years), an artist management and booking agency that works with over twenty bands, both locally and nationally-known; general manager at the School of Rock Boston, an afterschool music program for kids and teens that seeks to “save rock n’ roll one kid at a time.”
If you don’t have time to watch the whole thing, below are the parts of the interview that are the most relevant to my paper, which was an astounding 12 minutes or so of this 13-minute-long interview. Happy watching or reading!
Q: What are the most rewarding things about being a musician? A: Being able to get a message out there… is very important. My music is my voice.
Q: What are some of the most difficult things about being in the music business, or being a musician? A: There’s a lot of flaky people in the music industry. A lot of promoters and booking agents last about two years… you have to be able to work with artists, who, a lot of them are very passionate about things, and sometimes the artistic temperament is not one that everybody knows how to deal with. But you have to respect them for what they do, and you have to try to fight fairly for them to make sure that they’re treated well.
Q: Do you think that your experience as a musician, as a performer, has been impacted by your gender as a woman? And if so, how? A: Absolutely. Once of my key components in edging into the music industry was actually being in the radio industry, which… is only 13% female. So I would get in… and then the pressure would be on me to prove myself, that I was just as good as every single other employee. It was great to get in, but you had to work twice as hard.
Q: What about now, you don’t work in radio anymore, so what’s it like being a musician – onstage, offstage, writing with the band…? A: I think for a female musician, it’s more image-based. And I’m gonna be blunt and say this; as a female musician, you have to have an image and your stage presence has to be one of two things: shocking, or sexy; in order to sell.
Now, a lot of females in music tend towards pop. And pop is very glamorous, they have to be beautiful, they have to look like models, they have to be able to dance. My genre, I’m in the punk scene, I’m going the other route, I’m shocking. I put stuff out there that people are like, ‘oh my god, I can’t believe you’re saying that.’ And once again, you do have image issues… I can’t say something about a part of the anatomy onstage, but it’s alright for a guy to say it.
Q: So, like covering a Misfits song, or singing AC\DC’s “Big Balls,” right? A: Yeah, we’ve covered “Big Balls” and everyone’s like, ‘a girl is singing that?’ But if a guy does it, they don’t think twice.
So obviously, yes, perception is very different if you’re a frontman or a frontwoman.
Q: What about other musicians, has their gender impacted their success? A: I don’t know if it’s impacted their success, but sometimes it has impacted the way that they’re treated. I’ve seen situations where female musicians in bands will be stalked or accosted by bar patrons… it’s… perception. If a woman dresses provocatively onstage, then obviously she’s asking for something, and, you know, that’s not the case… And if she doesn’t, it really depends. They might not pay attention to her at all, or they may take her more seriously. I think it’s fine whatever they want to do, if they want to dress more glamorous, and wear the low-cut evening gown, they should be able to do that. But it really depends what kind of message you’re trying to get out there.
Women, more, have to sell themselves, rather than their music, if they want to sell their music. For a male musician, they sell their talent. Women have to sell their image. That’s the difference.
Q: In that vein, do you see any correlation between the gender of a musician and the way that the media sees them? A: I would say more the media from a marketability standpoint, because of what the media accepts. I have a line in one of my songs, Disney sets the standards, what defines a pretty voice, So just plug in your TV and forgo your right of choice. And you listen to popular singers, you listen to the big-selling artists, and they’re all high-voiced sopranos. I could never make it in that world, I’m a female tenor, I have a male vocal range. And therefore, because I don’t sound girly-girl, I’m not marketable in the pop world. That’s really what it boils down to – image. You have to be pretty, and you have to be gentle, and you have to nod, and you have to smile, and if you don’t do that, you’re considered a misfit.
Q: Is it different for men and women, because there are stereotypes for both of these genders, there’s what you said, like, the girl has to have a high voice and be gentle and nice, I mean, I’m sure there’s stuff for guys too, like be strong and masculine and aggressive…? A: Yeah, they’ve gotta have muscles, or they gotta have all the chicks hanging off of them, they have that sort of image too, but you also have, you have your male pop stars, who can go from the dude with all the chicks, to your heavy metal headbangers who’ve got all the tattoos and the shaved heads, and they’re not pretty boys, but that’s acceptable too. But if a woman did that, people would find it ugly, or unacceptable, or harsh.
Q: So, what do you know about the Riot Grrrl movement? A: I have a lot of respect for them. I think a lot of them took cues from Joan Jett, who’s probably one of my biggest idols. Joan Jett was, excuse my language, but ballsy. She inspired a lot of young girls to pick up guitars. And I think the Riot Grrrl movement grew out of that. She has some involvement with some of those artists, she also has a label that some of those artists were on.
And they went out there and they were tired of put-downs. They were tired of the expected societal connotations of having to be a female in the music industry. So they went out and they said a lot of things and did a lot of things, and they made their mark. And I think a lot of young girls looked up to them and were very inspired. They’re revolutionaries.
Q: So… [regarding the paper I’m writing,] I’ve had a lot of trouble finding out about them, and most people I’ve talked to have never heard of Riot Grrrls. So they were very much against the mainstream media, production and marketing… do you think that limited them in major ways? Because what I’ve found is that, I haven’t found that much about them, and I think it might have limited their reach, you know? A:I think they were viewed more as a West-coast phenomenon. This was a Seattle-California thing. The Riot Grrrl movement never really got into the Boston area, or New England.
Q: Do you think there were any particular reasons for the movement not to have spread? I mean, you have, like, Nirvana, like grunge… that started in Seattle too, and then just exploded. I guess they also got more radio airplay… A: They got more radio airplay… basically around the time that grunge was exploding, the alternative became the mainstream… [but] the Riot Grrrls didn’t really get that kind of push.
But then again, you look at alternative rock fans, and, they’re trying to target the demographic to… males 13 to 26.
Q: Why males? A: I’m not really sure, but maybe they assume that they’re most of the people that buy records, but I don’t see that that’s the case… [and] depending on the band, I see as many females at shows that I do, males. But, you are also going to find out with show attendance, that if it’s a female artist, the audience will be predominantly female. (Why?) They see a role model that they can look up to,… they enjoy the music they can sing along to it, it’s accessible to them, maybe. They can put themselves in the person’s shoes, who’s singing the song, and kind of identify. But we didn’t see a lot of male support for the Riot Grrrl movement.
I have conducted interviews with three female musicians about their experiences in the music industry. It was refreshing to get out of the 'research = reading' mindset, and hear three perspectives, from people who are all so thoroughly engaged in music, yet who all play different instruments and who have their roots in different genres.
Interview #1 - Simone Berk - Guitarist, vocalist, songwriter for Sugar Snow
(Although we were unable to meet in person, I sent Simone roughly the same questions that I asked the other two interviewees; her responses are below.)
Background:
Simone is the frontwoman for Boston-based band Sugar Snow. She is the guitarist, vocalist, songwriter of the band. According to Maverick Magazine, a digital music magazine from the U.K., Sugar Snow sounds like "acoustic-styled pop" with "achingly beautiful lead vocals... driving drums and strident electric guitar." Outside of music, she spends a fair amount of time being a mom, as, I imagine, many parents do. She began seriously playing music just a few years ago, but she knows quite a bit about the perception of women from her experiences.
Q: What are the most rewarding things about being a musician?
A: The people that I meet through music, people I would never have met otherwise, are a huge part of why I love being a musician. Being able to share your creativity (music is meant to be shared) and feel like it is heard and appreciated is great, too. And playing shows can be really fun. On a good night, there’s nothing like it.
Q: What are some of the most difficult things about being in the music business, or being a musician?
A: I have no complaints about being a musician, other than it’s hard sometimes. Boo hoo for me. :)
My issue is with the business side of things. The low regard in which musicians are held is really quite depressing. I think there are a lot of unscrupulous people who are ready to take advantage of you, and a lot of fragile egos. Just like anything else, you have to keep your wits about you and learn who is good to work with and who is out to screw you. It is a repeat life lesson that I could have done without.
Q: Do you think that your experience as a musician, as a performer, has been impacted by your gender as a woman? If so, how?
A: Without a doubt, it has made a difference. It can’t not – I AM a woman, after all. The reminders of the importance of looks and youth, not just good music, is something that most of the male musicians I know never have to consider. I am really thankful that I didn’t start playing music in my twenties, because I know I would have ended up with an eating disorder from the constant scrutiny. At this point, I don’t care. Ah, the beauty of being over 40!
Interestingly, most of my “fans” are men. I’m not sure if that’s because I am a woman, but I suspect it has something to do with that. I have been told that I sound very vulnerable when I sing, so maybe I am tapping into some macho need of theirs to protect and take care of me. Which, if that’s it, is utterly hilarious.
Q: What's it like being a musician – onstage, offstage, writing with the band…?
A: I don’t write with the band, I write on my own and bring it to the band in it’s basic, though skeletal form. It generally works like this: I start playing guitar, find a chord progression that I like, look for lyrics in my notebooks that fit, and then edit and edit and edit until it holds together. Then I bring it to the band, sometimes with “this needs a bridge” sometimes with “I have questions about the tempo” and sometimes with nothing, it’s done. They of course add themselves as they play, which is great. But the writing is never done as a group.
I don’t get particularly nervous anymore, but it used to be paralyzing. Now I am confident enough to figure it will go the way it goes, sometimes great, sometimes meh. You can never know until you play. We are ALWAYS well rehearsed, but the magic of live music is that you never know what will happen. And I do enjoy that part of it.
Offstage, I am just Mom. I vacuum and do house crap just like anyone else. It’s not very glamorous, which is really annoying. :)
Q: What about other musicians, has their gender impacted their success, or their perception?
A: It depends on what your definition of success is. If making great music that is enjoyed and respected is success, then I don’t think it matters too terribly much, although you will come across random Neanderthals who don’t “identify” with music by women. If it has hampered my success, I don’t know about it.
BUT if you are talking about the BUSINESS of music, then absolutely. Because business is about money, minimizing your investment and maximizing your success. And by “your” I mean “their”. I always think of the 80’s band Romeo Void. They were an amazing band, but their singer, poet Deborah Iyall, was overweight and not conventionally pretty. Remember, this was the age of video, so that mattered. They had initial flukey success, and then never again. And the band Heart—Anne Wilson was constantly told she had to lose weight by her record company. Her voice is unbelievably powerful, but that wasn’t enough. Then repeat and repeat and repeat again, with women in music everywhere.
Q: Do you see any correlation between the gender of a musician and the way that the media sees them?
A: I want to say yes immediately, but music writers are individuals with their own tastes and bullshit. Their job is not objective at all. So really, anything they say is an opinion anyway. I don’t view them as journalists. But those opinions may contain all kinds of preconceived notions and misconceptions that can’t help but come out. I remember reading an article about the band L7 and the writer talking about their PMS, by way of explaining their surliness. Really? Are we still beating that horse?
Q: So… [regarding the paper,] I’ve had a lot of trouble finding out about Riot Grrrls, and most people I’ve talked to have never heard of them. They were very much against the mainstream media, production and marketing… do you think that limited them in major ways? Because what I’ve found is that,... I actually haven’t found that much about them, and I wonder if their rejection of the mainstream might have limited their reach?
A: Sure. In the age of the interweb, they would have had a wide reaching platform for their views. Of course, that would have made them susceptible to backlash, and my sense is that they were trying to make things better for themselves at the time, not necessarily trying to change music forever.
Things continue to be complicated for women. You don’t have to get naked to be successful and respected (like Kim Deal or Kim Gordon) but of course you can. If a woman wants to use her sexiness to sell her music, she has a right to do so. My feminist perspective right there—feminism is about choices, and women in music have choices to make about how they want to be perceived. I suspect, in the long run, women who use the T&A method lose respect, simply because it, and they, get old. Everyone has moved onto something else—so will the music hold up?
Q: Anything else you want to add about your experiences? As a woman, a musician, a songwriter, a guitar player...?
A: This band has been a steep learning curve for me. I learned pretty quickly that business savvy is an absolute necessity, and that it is never JUST about music. It is sickeningly complicated, and it can become an IT, it’s own entity, if you let it. The beautiful thing about having experienced a whole life before I started music is that I don’t need to let Sugar Snow become an It. Sugar Snow is me. I am not It.
Interview #2 - Renee Solano - Drummer, songwriter for Sans Nomenclature
(I interviewed Renee while walking around a park, so I filmed that.)
Background:
Renee is a drummer and songwriter for the local punk band Sans Nomenclature. She teaches drum lessons and leads band rehearsals at the School of Rock Boston. She also teaches in an after school program called Be In Your Own Band, as well as private drum lessons.
Q: What do you see as the most rewarding things about being involved in the music industry and being a musician?
A: I think making people happy with music is one of my favorite things to see. My jazz band used to play rest homes, and… people were absolutely ecstatic to have music…
The music that we write isn’t necessarily happy music… a song that I wrote, “Breadcrumbs of Death”, isn’t exactly happy… it’s funny and angry at the same time. It’s about my gluton allergies… and a lot of people who have that can relate, I’m sure.
Q: What are the most challanging things about being a musician?
A: I’d say the most challanging tings is getting people to respect us as artists and pay us for our work. People expect us to give it away for free. If artists don’t get paid for what they do, it’s not going to be possible for them to make more music in the future. That is my concern.
Q: Do you think your experience as a musician has been impacted by your gender, at all, as a woman?
A: Yes and no. When I first started, I said, I don’t want to be known as a female drummer, I just want to be known as a drummer. And that’s still the case, but on the other hand, any gimmick that gets people to come to your shows, use it.
Q: So gender is kind of a gimmick?
A: It can be. For example, I have people go, ‘oh, a female drummer,’ they’ll come out and see [the concert] just to see [the female drummer.]
Q: So it’s a spectacle?
A: No, I’d say, it’s a way to get people to shows. you use anything you can to get people to shows. It’s entertainment, and whatever it is that will make people come out and pay to see you, for whatever reason, [you go with that.] And so, I don’t have any problem with… people who come out to see me because [I am] a girl [drummer] and that’s very rare. But my hope is that they see me, they see that I’m good, and they come back.
Q: …because you’re good, not because you’re a woman drummer?
A: Right exactly. Usually what happens is they’ll go, ‘she’s pretty good’ and they’ll come back, not because there’s a girl playing drums, but… I mean, any gimmick. If you’re singer’s pretty, you put pictures of her up on your flyers. I mean let’s be realistic here, whatever sells – within reason. [And] if your male singer is attractive, you put pictures of him up on the flyers, so the girls show up… it’s the same thing.
Q: Do you see other musicians as having been impacted by their gender, in their music, in their performance?
A: Probably. The thing is, if you’re a female singer, that’s sort of expected. If I show up to a jam session, people always go, ‘oh cool, so what songs are you gonna sing?’ Noo… I am a drummer. But I can’t really yell and scream that that’s sexist, because generally… when I show up to these things, I’m the only female who plays an instrument. It’s not like there’s not a precedent for people to just assume.
Q: Do you see a correlation between a musician’s gender and the way they’re portrayed in the media, or perceived by the media?
A: Absolutely. Especially the last… twenty years or so. I mean, I don’t want to offend anybody, but I don’t think Mama Cass or Barbra Streisand or Janis Joplin would have had a shot – they would’ve been the person lip synching behind the pretty chick in C&C Music factory that they used in the video. That’s what would have been happening, because now it is about image, especially in the world of pop. And I don’t think a girl who is not attractive has an shot at being a frontperson.
Q: Wow. So what about news or magazine articles, you know, just like media, I guess other than the general stuff? Do you read music magazines?
A: Yeah, I would say a [woman’s] image is picked apart more [than a man’s].
It was my hope that eventually females would be treated the way males used to be treated, and no one would comment n tei weight or what they’re wearing. And now, it’s more like, everyone’s commenting about [the mens’] weight and what they’re wearing. So it’s gone completely the other way.
I don’t want to make it sound like, if you’re a female and you want to be a musician, ‘don’t do it, because it’s horrible,’ I mean if it’s what you want to do, do it.
[It is very difficult to do music full-time and make a living] but it’s not impossible. Lots of us are doing it. And that may include… teaching, booking, managing… there’s lots of aspects of the music industry besides performing. It can be done.
Q: Do you want to play a drum beat for us?
A: On this bench? Sure…
Q: Yeah, do it. Do it! DO IT!
A: *Tap, tap-tap, tap-tap, tap, tap.*
Interview #3 - Anderson Mar - Vocalist, songwriter for Sans Nomenclature
Background:
Anderson has many different roles in the rock music industry: frontwoman for Boston-based punk band Sans Nomenclature; founder/CEO of Dark Sky Productions (for the past 17 years), an artist management and booking agency that works with over twenty bands, both locally and nationally-known; general manager at the School of Rock Boston, an afterschool music program for kids and teens that seeks to “save rock n’ roll one kid at a time.”
If you don’t have time to watch the whole thing, below are the parts of the interview that are the most relevant to my paper, which was an astounding 12 minutes or so of this 13-minute-long interview. Happy watching or reading!
Q: What are the most rewarding things about being a musician?
A: Being able to get a message out there… is very important. My music is my voice.
Q: What are some of the most difficult things about being in the music business, or being a musician?
A: There’s a lot of flaky people in the music industry. A lot of promoters and booking agents last about two years… you have to be able to work with artists, who, a lot of them are very passionate about things, and sometimes the artistic temperament is not one that everybody knows how to deal with. But you have to respect them for what they do, and you have to try to fight fairly for them to make sure that they’re treated well.
Q: Do you think that your experience as a musician, as a performer, has been impacted by your gender as a woman? And if so, how?
A: Absolutely. Once of my key components in edging into the music industry was actually being in the radio industry, which… is only 13% female. So I would get in… and then the pressure would be on me to prove myself, that I was just as good as every single other employee. It was great to get in, but you had to work twice as hard.
Q: What about now, you don’t work in radio anymore, so what’s it like being a musician – onstage, offstage, writing with the band…?
A: I think for a female musician, it’s more image-based. And I’m gonna be blunt and say this; as a female musician, you have to have an image and your stage presence has to be one of two things: shocking, or sexy; in order to sell.
Now, a lot of females in music tend towards pop. And pop is very glamorous, they have to be beautiful, they have to look like models, they have to be able to dance. My genre, I’m in the punk scene, I’m going the other route, I’m shocking. I put stuff out there that people are like, ‘oh my god, I can’t believe you’re saying that.’ And once again, you do have image issues… I can’t say something about a part of the anatomy onstage, but it’s alright for a guy to say it.
Q: So, like covering a Misfits song, or singing AC\DC’s “Big Balls,” right?
A: Yeah, we’ve covered “Big Balls” and everyone’s like, ‘a girl is singing that?’ But if a guy does it, they don’t think twice.
So obviously, yes, perception is very different if you’re a frontman or a frontwoman.
Q: What about other musicians, has their gender impacted their success?
A: I don’t know if it’s impacted their success, but sometimes it has impacted the way that they’re treated. I’ve seen situations where female musicians in bands will be stalked or accosted by bar patrons… it’s… perception. If a woman dresses provocatively onstage, then obviously she’s asking for something, and, you know, that’s not the case… And if she doesn’t, it really depends. They might not pay attention to her at all, or they may take her more seriously. I think it’s fine whatever they want to do, if they want to dress more glamorous, and wear the low-cut evening gown, they should be able to do that. But it really depends what kind of message you’re trying to get out there.
Women, more, have to sell themselves, rather than their music, if they want to sell their music. For a male musician, they sell their talent. Women have to sell their image. That’s the difference.
Q: In that vein, do you see any correlation between the gender of a musician and the way that the media sees them?
A: I would say more the media from a marketability standpoint, because of what the media accepts. I have a line in one of my songs,
Disney sets the standards, what defines a pretty voice,
So just plug in your TV and forgo your right of choice.
And you listen to popular singers, you listen to the big-selling artists, and they’re all high-voiced sopranos. I could never make it in that world, I’m a female tenor, I have a male vocal range. And therefore, because I don’t sound girly-girl, I’m not marketable in the pop world. That’s really what it boils down to – image. You have to be pretty, and you have to be gentle, and you have to nod, and you have to smile, and if you don’t do that, you’re considered a misfit.
Q: Is it different for men and women, because there are stereotypes for both of these genders, there’s what you said, like, the girl has to have a high voice and be gentle and nice, I mean, I’m sure there’s stuff for guys too, like be strong and masculine and aggressive…?
A: Yeah, they’ve gotta have muscles, or they gotta have all the chicks hanging off of them, they have that sort of image too, but you also have, you have your male pop stars, who can go from the dude with all the chicks, to your heavy metal headbangers who’ve got all the tattoos and the shaved heads, and they’re not pretty boys, but that’s acceptable too. But if a woman did that, people would find it ugly, or unacceptable, or harsh.
Q: So, what do you know about the Riot Grrrl movement?
A: I have a lot of respect for them. I think a lot of them took cues from Joan Jett, who’s probably one of my biggest idols. Joan Jett was, excuse my language, but ballsy. She inspired a lot of young girls to pick up guitars. And I think the Riot Grrrl movement grew out of that. She has some involvement with some of those artists, she also has a label that some of those artists were on.
And they went out there and they were tired of put-downs. They were tired of the expected societal connotations of having to be a female in the music industry. So they went out and they said a lot of things and did a lot of things, and they made their mark. And I think a lot of young girls looked up to them and were very inspired. They’re revolutionaries.
Q: So… [regarding the paper I’m writing,] I’ve had a lot of trouble finding out about them, and most people I’ve talked to have never heard of Riot Grrrls. So they were very much against the mainstream media, production and marketing… do you think that limited them in major ways? Because what I’ve found is that, I haven’t found that much about them, and I think it might have limited their reach, you know?
A:I think they were viewed more as a West-coast phenomenon. This was a Seattle-California thing. The Riot Grrrl movement never really got into the Boston area, or New England.
Q: Do you think there were any particular reasons for the movement not to have spread? I mean, you have, like, Nirvana, like grunge… that started in Seattle too, and then just exploded. I guess they also got more radio airplay…
A: They got more radio airplay… basically around the time that grunge was exploding, the alternative became the mainstream… [but] the Riot Grrrls didn’t really get that kind of push.
But then again, you look at alternative rock fans, and, they’re trying to target the demographic to… males 13 to 26.
Q: Why males?
A: I’m not really sure, but maybe they assume that they’re most of the people that buy records, but I don’t see that that’s the case… [and] depending on the band, I see as many females at shows that I do, males. But, you are also going to find out with show attendance, that if it’s a female artist, the audience will be predominantly female. (Why?) They see a role model that they can look up to,… they enjoy the music they can sing along to it, it’s accessible to them, maybe. They can put themselves in the person’s shoes, who’s singing the song, and kind of identify. But we didn’t see a lot of male support for the Riot Grrrl movement.